Many of today's entertainment or communication-related electronic devices rely on receiving, transmitting, and/or using streaming digital data or content. For example, a set-top box may receive broadcast television programs and/or video-on-demand (VOD) that is streamed from a content provider. A personal computer may receive a stream of a video clip over the Internet. A soft phone may receive streaming audio data over a real-time transport protocol (RTP) link/channel that is established over an Internet Protocol (IP) network.
Advertisers can take advantage of the ease with which such digital data or content can be streamed to consumers by piggy-backing advertisements on the content or by splicing the advertisements and the content. Advertisements can be inserted into a video stream based on signals or cues that are associated with advertisement breaks within the video stream.